


The Consequences of War

by Caladenia



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: Angst, Baby is not the main characters' child, Death of a baby not detailed, Early in Season 1, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-15
Updated: 2020-01-20
Packaged: 2021-02-27 09:47:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,227
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22265107
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Caladenia/pseuds/Caladenia
Summary: Early in season 1, a mission goes wrong, leading Sam to reconsider her place on SG-1 after Jack shuns her.
Relationships: Samantha "Sam" Carter/Jack O'Neill
Comments: 21
Kudos: 72





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Story formerly known as _The Chicken_ because my brain went missing in action when I posted the first two chapters. 
> 
> Inspired by the last episode of M.A.S.H. _Goodbye, Farewell and Amen_ (1983).
> 
> My great thanks to RhinoHill for her beta. I didn't follow all her suggestions and any remaining faults are mine.

* * *

“A chicken?” Gasping for air, Sam bent over, hands on her thighs.

The colonel had set a punishing pace up the slope, but she should have been able to keep up instead of panting and huffing her lungs out. Maybe it was a mistake to have returned to duty so quickly.

She shook her head. It’s just the heat, she told herself.

O’Neill had thankfully stopped, his lean figure silhouetted against the nondescript rocky landscape showing very little shade and nothing to rest the eyes. She should have checked if he wanted to go all the way to the summit before hurrying after him. The goat trail he’d been climbing as if he was surveying it wound up the side of the mountain—an arduous trek for anybody but the keenest hiker.

“Whatever they call a chicken on P4X-225.” O’Neill shifted his rucksack a little higher on his shoulders before starting off again without a glance back.

Sam opened her mouth. Closed it. Every time she broached the subject of what had unfolded on P4X-225, the colonel threw a murderous glare in her direction. Daniel winced before looking away, and Teal’c was his usual inscrutable self. What had happened on that last mission for the colonel to still be so edgy two weeks later?

Her heart rate and breathing were close enough to normal again. She hurried after her CO, the dust swirling around her boots.

_Red dust into her eyes, her nose, mouth. Suffocating, but when she tries to push herself upright, it’s like she’d been hit by a tank._

One thing was certain, she had to get to the bottom of what was unsettling her CO, and if that meant submitting to his punishing hike, so be it. She had survived worse foot marches at the Air Force academy.

“The woman who was with us was holding a chicken,” she repeated once she reached him, hoping her voice didn’t reveal her disbelief. She’d seen no animal on P4X-225 as far as she could remember, especially of the farming variety. It would not have lasted long considering the meagre food they’d been given during the few days the four of them had been prisoners of the Jaffa, along with what had seemed at the time as half of the planet population.

The colonel’s strides lengthened, and Sam scurried to catch up with him once more. “I remember the woman,” she continued when she reached his side. “Young, scared. But I don’t recall a chicken.” Perhaps she was the one who was mistaken. Her memory of those few days was hazy.

“Well, it was there,” O’Neill threw back at her, and he was gone again.

She saved her breath by not responding and letting him regain the lead. It made no sense he was so concerned about a chicken, which meant he had to be angry at her. For getting hit when they’d stepped off the stargate. For slowing the team down so they couldn’t fight their way out. For them getting captured too. For jeopardizing their breakout a few days later.

The sun beat on her neck, bringing with it the promise of more heat to come. This was not the way she would have wished to spend SG-1’s first mission since P4X-225, especially as the two planets looked so similar.

She’d missed the debriefing. The splitting migraine and light sensitivity she’d suffered following her concussion had put her off duty for days after their return. Once her eyesight had returned to normal and the headaches had reduced to a mild throbbing, she had read the mission reports. Her recollection of the four days they’d spent on P4X-225 might have been muddled, but there had to be something wrong with her team mates’ memories too.

Teal’c’s section was the most succinct, but that was to be expected from the Jaffa who gently, but firmly, ignored anything looking like paperwork. Daniel had been almost as concise, and that had immediately raised Sam’s suspicions. Brevity was not Daniel’s style. She knew too well how his descriptions of events could run into thousands of words, rather than the few dozens he’d used this time. At least, his report explained why the team had managed to be captured when nothing had indicated P4X-225 was overrun by Jaffa prior to SG-1’s untimely arrival. The Jaffa belonged to a local Goa’uld keen to carve his own niche away from his better-known and better-armed brethren. The team had fallen right in the middle of one of his raids on the defenceless population.

O’Neill’s report mentioned how Sam had got injured almost as soon as they had cleared the gate thanks to a Jaffa staff weapon smashing into her temple. In a few terse sentences, he noted the capture of the entire team and the long march in the heat of the day to the Jaffa stronghold. She only remembered the double suns bearing down on her, and the dust, and the hands helping her up again and again.

Typically, the colonel would have written something witty about the guards’ ancestry, added hints of praise for his team and a couple of suggestions for not falling into the same trap for their next mission.

Not this time. His words were like tessellated tiles, hiding their meaning behind a pattern meant to distract. And then the briefest of ending: ‘ _We took advantage of a prison outbreak to escape to the gate and dial home.’_

She could hardly remember the event. After days in the dark prison, bursting out in the open under P4X-225’s suns had felt like getting hit on the head a second time. She’d spent most of their run to freedom half-carried half-dragged by one of the guys, the others scouting the path ahead until they’d reached the gate, mercifully unguarded this time.

“What else happened?” she asked, trotting to his level as the path widened.

“Does it matter?”

“I want to know. The whole thing’s still a bit hazy in my head,” she said in a conciliatory tone, her mind swirling with dire scenarios.

“We came through, got into some strife and got out, Captain.”

Sam stopped in her tracks, watching O’Neill stride ahead. He’d never been that dismissive of her before. In fact, since she’d been appointed as his second-in-command a few weeks back, he had always paid due attention to her position and had been exemplary in his attitude towards her despite their less than stellar introduction.

It had to be something she’d done while on P4X-225. Something she couldn’t remember, and he didn’t want to talk about.

But what?

O’Neill disappeared around a bend, and she pushed on to catch up with him.

At first, she’d thought his curt manners at her bedside in the infirmary had been out of concern for her welfare. That he thought himself responsible for her injuries. She’d been at pains to let him know that it had been an ambush he could not know about, but the more she’d tried to brush his concerns away, the darker his frown until he’d just stood and left the infirmary without a further word.

He had not let up since, his surliness towards her deepening after she'd been released by Dr Fraiser. She’d taken two days off at home on medical leave, but his antagonism had not abated after her return to the base.

There’d already been a few times where she’d been the main reason for a mission going sideways very quickly. The galaxy didn't take too kindly to a female soldier at the best of times, and the team had spent too many occasions extricating her from awkward situations. Daniel had run into his fair share of incidents too, but the archaeologist’s knowledge was crucial in the field. There was also a deep friendship and healthy respect between the two men, even if they hid that behind snarky remarks.

She could tell that whatever was angering the colonel, it had nothing to do with Daniel.

It was all her doing.

After only a few weeks working as a team, maybe the colonel was re-thinking her role on SG-1. It’s not like there was a dearth of capable people eager to take her place on the SGC flagship team. That had to be it, she decided. She would be returning to base tonight to a briefing with General Hammond, telling her that she’d been re-assigned.

O’Neill was now a good hundred metres ahead, almost sprinting up the slope, his heavy boots making small play of the treacherous rocky path. She would have to hurry to keep up with him. She was still part of the team. She still had a job to do.

For the time being.

Putting her head down, she plodded on. He would have to stop sooner or later. Sooner would be good. The heat pushed on her shoulders, sweat gathering down her back. She kept her eyes on the ground just in front of her.

Two strong hands seized her right arm and shoved her backwards. “For god’s sake, Carter, watch where you’re going!”

She glanced down the vertical drop at her feet. She had not noticed the path had taken an abrupt turn to the right and she had almost stumbled off the narrow track. The stones she’d dislodged gathered speed down the scree and the talus sheared underneath her feet. She pressed her back to the cliff wall as half the path disappeared, carried away by the small avalanche she’d caused. Her legs still trembling, she shuffled past the collapsed section. The last thing she needed was to be killed in a stupid accident.

The gate was but a black speck at the bottom of the valley.

_The woman running at her side, her partner supporting her._

“The young woman was Karuah,” she said.

O'Neill was still holding her arm, and she saw a cloud of emotions passing over his face--anger, concern, sadness, before his command mask came slamming down. It was rare that he let his feelings show, and she was at a loss at what to do.

“There were many more women, and I don’t remember their names,” she added, stubbornly. “But I remember her.”

He let her go and turned to face the valley. “Karuah,” he said, his back sliding down the rock behind him until he sat next to her. “I never knew her name.”

“There were Jaffa too,” she added, looking at Jack for a sign she was on the right track.

Had those Jaffa done something to him she had pushed off her mind? She hadn’t seen the rest of the team until the escape. Had he been tortured because of her?

“Plenty of them. That’s why we waited.” But she heard ‘because you couldn’t keep up’ behind his words.

He continued, his forearms on his knees. “From talking to the other men in our cell, Daniel got the hint something was brewing, a rescue of some sort organised from the outside. When the walls were breached, the prisoners made a dash for it, but it was carnage. The guards were shooting from the height of the fortifications outside. Those who run into the open didn’t stand a chance.”

While most of the prisoners had rushed through a large hole in the thick walls, Jack and Daniel had gone against the tide of people, trying to find her, a young man by their side while Teal'c kept watch.

The two men had helped her to her feet, while the young man had made a bee line for Karuah. They had been among the last ones to emerge into daylight. That she remembered. She had not been prepared for the sizzling wall which had risen in their path when they’d broken cover. The summer solstice on a planet orbiting a binary star system was no place for humans, and after three days in darkness, the dazzling suns had made her light-headed and rendered her almost blind. O’Neill’s arm had wrapped around her waist, supporting her. Karuah had showed them the way, helped by the man barely out of adolescence who had come with Jack from across the corridor.

Together, they had kept to the wall for a hundred metres before scurrying under the cover of large trees leading away. There they had witnessed a massacre as wave after wave of people had fallen to the energy weapons of their captors, twitching and burning where they fell. So many that a handful escaping the other way had gone undetected.

“That's when the chicken started to squawk,” O’Neill said, in a manner of fact tone.

Sam frowned. “Isn’t that what chickens do?” The colonel wasn’t making any sense. Why would the woman carry a chicken with her?

“Yes. Is that all, Captain?” He stared at her.

That hadn’t gone down well, but she was not going to beat a hasty retreat. She tilted her head up, squinting in the glare. “I need to know what I did wrong, Colonel. Did you give me an order I refused to follow?”

He stood, six-feet of muscle and anger blocking the sun and leaving her in his shadow. “You know, Carter, not everything is about you,” he said with a deep rumble of a voice. He turned on his heels and was gone again.

**⁂**

“General, could I have a moment?”

“Of course, Captain. What can I do for you?”

“It's about P4X-225.”

Hammond frowned. “Do you need more time off duty? I thought Dr Fraiser had given you a clean bill of health, but if you feel you--”

“No, it's not that.”

There had been no talk of her being reassigned when they had come back from the mission in the afternoon. Seconds after the end of the short debriefing, Jack had left the base. Daniel was due for a conference the following week and had excused himself to write a paper, while Teal'c had disappeared to his quarters on the base.

If that was going to be the new norm from now on, she wanted no part of it.

“It’s about the colonel. I’d like to know…” What? If the commanding officer of SG-1 was ostracising her for a mistake she didn't even remember? If he was expecting her to quit? If he still trusted her?

She floundered.

Hammond stood from behind his desk, an air of worry on his face. “Captain, unless you have a complaint to raise that only I can address, wouldn’t it be better to discuss whatever is troubling you directly with the Colonel?”

“Yes. You are right. I am sorry to have bothered you, General. Have a good evening.”

She saluted and left the office.


	2. Chapter 2

“Carter, what’re you doing here?”

“I need to know.” Before Jack had the time to close the door in her face, as his frown suggested, she went on, ready to put her foot on the door jam if needed. “I need to know what happened on P4X-225.”

She added a ‘sir', even though she was standing on his front porch in her civvies, and he was in his jeans and a loose shirt, holding a beer by the neck.

He looked at her for a good five seconds without saying a word, then he went back inside, leaving the front door open. She followed him through the entrance hall into the corridor, hardly noticing the decor.

“Beer?”

“Thank you—"

“Don't.”

“What?”

“Don't call me sir, Carter. Not here.”

She should have waited until he was back to the base. There, she would have stood at attention while he gave her a dressing down. Taken it on the chin. Here, there was no military protocols to prop her up, no rules to dictate how she should proceed.

He took a beer out of the fridge and gave it to her as he moved past, showing her down a few stairs into a sunken living room.

“Take a seat,” he said as he plunked himself in a chair across the room.

She sat on the edge of the couch, taking a sip of the beer. Heineken. Not her favourite brand, but she would have drunk anything at this point. Masking her wavering, she looked around, surprised at how cosy the room felt with its large stone fireplace and comfortable lounge chairs.

There was a large pot plant in the corner window and she wondered how he managed to keep it alive when her house plants never survived longer than a month. A few objects confirmed she was in the house of a military man. Diplomas she could not read from her chair hung from the wall, and various models of fighter planes and one of a Kiowa helicopter took pride of place under the table lamps. She smiled at the thought of him building them during long evenings spent alone. The only thing vaguely related to his assignment at the SGC was a large poster of Mars, and another model on the low wall, this time of an Apollo spacecraft. Like her and Daniel, he couldn’t bring back souvenirs from his visits to other planets.

“Spit it out, Carter.”

“Sir?”

His eyebrow rose from across the small table between them.

“Sorry. It’s just…I want to apologise for whatever happened on P4X-225, but I don’t even know what I should be apologising for.” Putting her beer bottle down on the table, she stood and held her ground. “I mean, if you think I should no longer be in your team, I would prefer for you to tell me.”

There. She had said the unthinkable, but somehow, she felt better for it.

Jack leaned forward, the bottle in his hands. “I don’t get what you are telling me, Carter. I’ve never said I wanted you off the team.”

That was true. “Well, no, sir, you haven’t. But during this last mission, you seemed to do your utmost to avoid me. Every time I tried to talk to you about P4X-225, you dodged my questions.” She dropped her gaze to the dark floorboards at her feet. “It’s because of something I did on that planet, isn’t? Something which jeopardized the mission. Something more than just getting injured.”

Didn’t she sound pathetic. What was he supposed to do? Hold her hand every time she got a scratch?

She was ready to bolt, but she was a captain. An Airforce captain for god’s sake. “I—” She lifted her eyes. O’Neill was up, leaning against the fire place.

There was a photo on it showing him with his arm around the shoulders of a blond woman, a young boy in front of them. A double-storey house rose behind the image of the perfect wholesome family.

He was married. She corrected herself. He had been married once upon a time. Although she knew little of what a home with a couple and kid should look like, the house he lived in now, with its low-key interior and aircraft models didn’t fit the bill. It was utterly masculine in its effect. Neat, personal, comfortable and with no toys and no other family photos to be seen.

He caught her looking at the photo. “Sara, my ex-wife. And Charlie, our son.”

That was the first indication he had ever given her that he had had a life prior to the SGC that didn’t involve black ops or piloting an experimental aircraft. And out of the blue, she felt the desire to know more about him. To know what got under his skin. What had made him leave his family, a picture of quiet happiness that still eluded her. What he did in the evenings when he was off base, apart from plane models.

But she could hardly ask him that.

He sat back down, his voice gentle. “Carter, look. Nothing happened on P4X-225 that was of your doing. We had out of date intel, you got injured through no fault of yours, we ended in a bad situation, but we made it out in one piece. If I’ve been…churlish lately, let’s just call it one of my many charms. I apologise for making you think it was because of you.”

Carter was still looking at the photo. “Karuah…”

Jack took a deep breath.

“She was screaming.”

“Carter, it’s not a good—”

“In the prison cell. She was screaming. I was holding her hand. There were others helping too. A couple of older women.”

He got up abruptly. “I’ll call Janet.”

Blood everywhere, but not as much as she’s expecting. Even the screams are muffled. All she can do is hold Karuah’s hand while the older women deal with the birth.

She could hear O’Neill on the phone, clearly irritated. “No, it’s all right, I’ll deal with it.” He slammed the phone down and strode back into the living room before dropping back in his chair.

“Why did you tell me it was a chicken?” she said, confused. “Karuah was not holding a chicken when we escaped. I know I wasn’t quite with it for most of the time, but I know the diff—” Her chest tightened, and she found herself gasping for the next breath. She swayed on her feet, dread rushing through her like an ill-fated wind.

“Carter, sit down.”

So used she was to obey his orders that she sat down immediately.

“Put your head between your knees, and take deep breaths.” His voice grew close, and his hand gently pushed on the back of her neck, keeping her head down.

She took a deep breath, held it, then released it, willing her heart to slow down. Another deep breath. Again, and again. The hand on her nape didn’t move, but she could feel its weight and warmth anchoring her to the solid reality of the room and of its owner.

She sat back up, and his hand dropped to her shoulder. “I’m okay now, sir. Sorry.”

“You had a panic attack, Carter. Nothing to be sorry about. Water?”

“Yes, please.”

He left her side and she felt bereft. When he came back, he put a glass on the small table in front of her and stayed standing.

“I don’t understand, sir. I’ve never experienced a panic attack before.” The water was cool and soothing.

“Happens to the best of us, Carter.”

“Is that why you phoned Janet?”

“She can’t come. An emergency with SG-5. She said…” He looked at the night outside. “She said to tell you that once you regain your memories, you’ll be okay.”

“That’s not good enough, sir. You need to replace me.”

His voice rose. “For crying out loud, Carter. You are a vital part of the team. You know that, don’t you?”

“I am not indispensable". She slammed the glass on the table top. “If it happens in the field next time, what are you going to do? Hold my hand while you wait until it passes?”

“There are worse things I could do than hold your hand, Carter,” Jack said with a smile in the corner of his mouth.

She was ready to scream at him, but his gentle smirk broke her. “Once I regain my memories.” She put her head between her hands. “And how long is that going to take?”

“I don’t know. I don’t care. There’s plenty of planets for us to visit which don’t fall within Goa’uld territory.”

“Is that why SG-5 got into trouble? Because SG-1 is leaving the more difficult missions to the other teams?”

Jack looked aside. “Just for a little while.”

“That won’t work, sir,” and she made sure he could hear the ‘sir’ this time. “SG-1 is the best team around. You can’t just squander Daniel and Teal’c’s skills and your experience on easy missions.”

“You know Daniel. A few old inscriptions and he is happy. As to Teal’c, he just loves mooching about.”

“Sir.”

“Carter, I don’t want you off the team. I’ve asked Hammond to give us a few stress-free missions for the next couple of weeks. If you are not better by then, we’ll think of something.”

She finished her glass of water. “There will be no something and you know that. The only way is for me to remember. Help me.”

“How?” He looked as close to panicking as she'd ever seen him.

“Walk me through the mission on P4X-225.”

“It’s not a good idea, Carter,” he protested. “At the very least, wait until we are back to base tomorrow, and Janet can help.”

“No, the sooner I deal with whatever happened, the sooner I can make a decision as to whether I continue as a member of SG-1”

“That is not your call to make.” And again, there was this slight hint of dread in his voice.

“You can’t stop me from resigning from SG-1. And if we don’t do this now, I am writing that letter as soon as I get home.” She was speaking well out of order, but it was out of pure frustration. She couldn’t see any other way out than resolve the matter right here, right now.

They looked at each other with fright and anger in their eyes in equal measures until Jack broke their mutual staring. He gulped down what was left of his beer. “All right.”


	3. Chapter 3

Jack settled back in his chair. “The Jaffa waited until we were all gone through the gate before jumping on us. Teal’c and I managed to fire a few rounds, but they closed behind us. You were the last one to go through, you remember?”

“Yes, Daniel was behind you and Teal’c was in front of me. I stepped through and…”

It’s full daylight and despite her sunglasses, the glare dazzles her. She hears rather than sees the fight, but when she raises her gun…

“You got hit on the side of the head by a staff weapon and dropped like a stone.”

When she comes to, she’s flat on her stomach, planet dust in the mouth, and rocks playing pin ball inside her brain. A Jaffa pulls her upright and ties up her hands, her stomach protesting the change of position. She is then joined to a chain, between Teal’c and O’Neill, and she walks and walks beneath the double suns. The heavy cloak of heat envelops her, rivulets of sweat pouring down her face and chest.

“I won’t complain about rainy planets ever again,” O’Neill is saying, as he and Teal’c keep her on her feet.

They stop. She sinks to her knees, a few drops of water passing her lips.

“We had to force you to drink. You were in a bad way for a while,” Jack said, spinning the beer bottle in his hand.

Sam is resting between the two men. She is so tired, she leans against the nearest shoulder.

“Oh no, Carter. Don’t you fall asleep on me. Come on, tell me about the periodic table. That should do it.”

“I could tell you all about it in my sleep, Colonel.”

She can feel him chuckle and makes herself more comfortable, her head finding just the right angle against his arm. She obeys him though, and reaches titanium without too much trouble, although its melting point is a bit of blur.

“Hot,” is all she can find in a recess of her slippery memory.

“Hot, Carter? Is that a scientific fact?” O’Neill asks. Again, there’s this low rumble in his chest which reverberates through her skull and makes her wince, but she is snug there. She can’t feel her fingers, but that maybe because her hands are too tightly bound.

There are more people around them, as if they’ve sprung from the earth. So many of them. Dirty, clothes in tatters. And the wind, always the wind, blowing up the desert dirt into dust devils only to dump the lung-clogging particles back onto the people huddled together.

Daniel is trying to communicate with them, and the Jaffa don’t seem very interested in stopping him. He learns the name of the Goa’uld tyrant they should thank for their present situation.

“A former underlord to Ra, Fetket,” Daniel tells them, except that’s not the name O’Neill uses when he insults the guards. Happily for SG-1, it seems that neither the local population nor the conquering Jaffa understand a word of English, and O’Neill’s voice soon grows hoarse.

They are walking again. Evening comes, the twin suns falling quickly behind the planet horizon. Sam idly wonders about how one planet can orbit two large suns without hurtling into deep space or crashing into one of them. She does equations in her head to distract herself. By the time they arrive at their destination, a large fortified stone building, she’s come no closer to an exact solution, but at least it’s dark and markedly cooler.

“Could hardly see in front of our noses by then, but they had a few big torches in that prison,” Jack said, as the light thrown by the table lamps drove her mind back in time once again.

Her hands are untied, and she is pushed with a throng of women into a large cell hardly fit for twenty people and soon holding at least three times that, filled with darkness, moans and stench.

She shuddered despite the warmth of the colonel’s house. The smell of sweat, blood, fear and, underlying it all, the bitter scent of death had clung to the walls and her clothes and her skin for days. She had tried to wash that horrid stench off her body when she’d finally been discharged from the SGC infirmary, but it was still stalking her.

“Then we got split up,” Jack said, his voice dropping.

The colonel is protesting loudly until there is a thump and she can’t hear him any longer. She turns against the flood of women to see him on his knees, with Daniel telling their jailer he didn’t need to do that. The younger man gets hit in the stomach too before the three men are pushed further down the corridor.

“We tried everything over the next two days to get you out of the women’s cell and into ours, but those guards were either complete idiots or too afraid of their little Goa’uld despot to listen to us.”

She could see how much it cost him to have his team separated because his fingers were white against the bottle he was holding, droplets of condensation running down the glass. It was his third beer since he had started talking, and he was only one day in the mission.

The guards bring water and there’s a rush to the front of her cell to get to the buckets. Somebody passes her a wooden bowl with tepid liquid in it. She holds it with swollen fingers and gulps a couple of mouthfuls before looking at who to give it to. A woman is moaning, legs wide apart in the dirt, her stomach distended. Sam leans over and holds up the head of the young and exhausted woman, helping her take a few gulps in between contractions.

She feels better in the dimness of the cell, her headache abating slightly, although it’s warm with all those bodies and no ventilation. Taking her jacket off, she puts it under the head of the woman in labour. She learns her name, and nothing much more because they can’t understand each other, at least not with words. She does not know much about childbirth, but one of the old women is making some reassuring noises. To her relief, and that of the young mother, it’s over very quickly.

She smiled. “I held the baby while the old woman cleaned Karuah as well as she could. He had a mop of dark hair, and he looked so serious.”

The tiny baby grabs her finger tight, a small frown and dark eyes questioning her as if she has all the answers. She gives him back reluctantly to his mother who fusses over him. Soon he is feeding, and everybody falls asleep, the silence only broken by moans and the guards walking past the cell bars.

“Daniel talked to the men in our cell,” Jack went on quickly. “That’s when he realised there was something brewing among the local population. Seems that they had had enough of Fuckwit and his scrooges, but we were going to have to wait. We tried to let you know but we couldn’t contact you.”

More people are shoved into the cell, and she stays with the young mother and her son, bringing them food and water when she wakes. She has dizzy spells and no idea how long she’s been in there before a massive rumble shakes the floor and walls, dislodging stones and the cell bars. The women move as one to the front of the cell and start shaking the loosened bars. The guards fight them at first, then are called away, and soon the cell door is wide opened.

Sam stays behind, helping the young woman to her feet. That’s when she sees the rest of her team rush against the swarm of people running towards a large opening in the back wall. There’s a young man with them who embraces the woman and her son. O’Neill gives her a quick look over, then tells Teal’c to take point.

“We came to get you out.” Then a name she doesn’t catch, “—was going to show us the way to the gate.”

She hesitates on the threshold, but O’Neill is already pushing her out of the cell and into that wall of heat and glare. She trips, picks herself up, trips again. The roar of sunlight presses against her temples.

“There were so many people,” she murmured.

The other prisoners are scurrying away from the fortified walls, but it’s a mistake. The guards have taken position above them and shoot their staff weapons indiscriminately at the terrified crowd.

“Siapur told us to keep to the walls.”

“Siapur?”

“The young woman’s boyfriend. He told Daniel he knew a place where we could hide and wait out the Goa’uld.”

Warm stones and crawling insects the size of a dinner plate hiding from the suns. With the temporary shade, she feels better again. Enough to know she’s endangering the team.

“You should have left me behind. I was slowing you down.”

“I couldn’t do that,” Jack said, and she didn’t need to ask why. An axiom, she would have described what remained unsaid between them. A self-evident truth which needed further exploration, one day. A no-go zone at this point in time.

“We waited for the night before making it to the gate. Dialled home. And Bob’s your uncle, we’re back at the SGC.” Jack got up, weariness written large on his face. “It’s getting late, Sam. We’ve got a mission briefing tomorrow at 0700, so—"

She stood obediently. Then sat back down. “That doesn’t explain the chicken.”

“Carter,” Jack said, his eyes narrowing.

She shook her head. “I heard it too. It was whining rather than squawking.”

“Carter.” His voice had turned harder, but she ignored the warning.

Shadows of a Goa’uld patrol walk past their pitiful hiding place. The baby is squirming in his mother’s arms, grumbling.

“You told Karuah to keep it quiet. Daniel translated.”

Guards enter the ruins and they’ve got to move quickly, keeping the crumbling walls between them and the enemy. Jack is guiding her, his hand keeping her head low. They come to the end of the ruins. Beyond, there’s only open fields under the suns and Goa’uld gliders passing overhead. They’ve got nowhere to go.

“He stopped crying.”

Panic rises once more in her chest. “Just when the Jaffa were getting close, the baby stopped crying.” She’s there on that desert planet, in the heat and too much sunlight, and the Goa’uld are on their heels and the baby is silent all of a sudden.

The sound of Jack's beer bottle smashing against the fireplace tears her away from a memory that she desperately needs and dreads equally. Fragments of glass fly, sparkling sickly green under the downlights.

“I just wanted her to keep the baby quiet, so I could bring you home,” Jack says in a broken voice, his back to her.

“Oh, my God,” she gasps, a chill running down her back.

The baby is still, too still, his eyes wide open and a bit of drool in the corner of his mouth. He’s got no questions to ask her anymore.

The shards of her mind come back together, back into a solid whole again—the look of utter despair on the young mother’s face, the dead baby in her lap, the Jaffa losing interest and moving away, SG-1's harried run to the gate in the darkness. Once they are back at the SGC, O’Neill lashes out at the General before striding off. Daniel gives her desolate looks. Teal’c says nothing.

She talks about a chicken to anybody who asks what happened, and nobody contradicts her. The debriefing reports hold no mention of a baby smothered by his own mother so that they could all live.

Jack turns around, regrets and grief etched in his dark eyes. “I swear, Sam. I swear I never wanted you to remember that.”

Before leaving, she glances back. He is still standing by the fire place, his hand holding the photo of his former life.

The reflection from the glass hurts her eyes.


End file.
